The present invention relates to an air intake device for improving the quality of air within the passenger compartment of land vehicles, such as automobiles.
The modern city dweller spends about two hours per day in his or her car, plus additional leisure time, vacation time, commuting time. All told, the time a city dweller spends inside of, or in the vicinity of, a car in an urban environment is close to six hours per day or nearly one fourth of a person's lifetime.
In the prior art, the air intake system of land vehicles, such as automobiles, is usually arranged behind the grille at the front end of the car. Air is drawn through the grille and then passed into the passenger compartment. The front grille is typically arranged at the level of the vehicle before the engine so that the air drawn through the grille is obtained from the air flow near the boundary layer of the road. However, it is known that some pollutants in vehicle exhaust plumes tend to settle near the ground. Thus, the air flow near the boundary layer of the road may contain pollutants exhausted from other vehicles on the road, especially in the case of bumper-to-bumper traffic when the exhaust plume of the car immediately in front may be directed into the front grille. In view of the irritating effects these pollutants may cause, it is desirable to avoid inhalation and contact with such pollutants.
One solution to provide cleaner air in the passenger compartment of a vehicle is to drastically reduce the emission of pollutants in the exhaust gases of the vehicles. However, this solution seems highly unlikely at least for the first half of the twenty-first century.